


But I'm In Love and I Ain't Lying

by vigilantesinthedark



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Aelin is still princess of Terrasen, Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Marriage Proposal, Rowan (and the rest of the cadre) are palace guards, Secret Relationship, but the Adarlan attack never happened so her parents are alive and Orlon is still king, i think you can guess where this is going, it's the obligatory bodyguard/royalty au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25131379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vigilantesinthedark/pseuds/vigilantesinthedark
Summary: "If you do plan to marry below your rank, I think you can outrage history even more by choosing lower than a guardsman."-Seeing Redd, Frank BeddorI saw this line, and was immediately inspired to write a fic where Rowan is a palace guard in Orynth where Aelin is a princess.Wherein Rowan is in a relationship that can never last (or so he thinks), Aelin is her usual snarky and scheming self, Fenrys is the ultimate wingman, and everything you know and love about this kind of AU is just as adorable as you think it is.
Relationships: Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien/Rowan Whitethorn, Fenrys & Aelin Ashryver Galathynius | Celaena Sardothien
Comments: 1
Kudos: 92





	But I'm In Love and I Ain't Lying

**Author's Note:**

> I had so much fun writing this, you don't even know.
> 
> Title from "Hi Ho" by The War and Treaty.

From his post outside of her door, palace guardsman Rowan Whitethorn could hear the princess of Terrasen moving about within it.

“I don’t know why we even have to be here,” his fellow guard Fenrys commented. “If a threat comes for the princess, we’re useless.”

It wasn’t that they were inept as guards and would be unable to keep her safe. Just the opposite. They were two of the best, which was why they had been appointed to Aelin Galathynius’s personal protection detail - or her “cadre” as she called them. But Aelin could defend herself so well that she rendered any guards useless.

After a threat from Adarlan had almost killed her parents, Aelin - at just eight years old - had begged to be allowed to learn to fight. Training under Rhoe Galathynius with the Terrasen soldiers, it was no surprise she progressed quickly. In the years since, it was no rare sight to find her and her cousin Aedion in the training room together at all hours of the day and night.

Had she not been royalty, she almost certainly would have been made captain of the guard by now. 

But she was, and so, no matter how futile, guardsmen were always posted outside her door.

“Would you rather be stationed outside the guest chambers when the Mycenaens are in town, boyo?”

Fenrys shuddered. “After the Mycenaens? Not a chance. While they know how to party, I’ve spent enough nights escorting them back to their beds while they vomit the aftereffects of said parties on me to be happy being useless here.” 

“They’re too wild even for you, it seems, which is really saying something,” Rowan teased.

“Now if you want to talk about wild, there’s that Ansel of Briarcliff.”His eyes gleamed at the thought of her.

“She looks at you like you’re a meal.”

“Oh, you mean the way Aelin looks at you?”

Before Rowan could reprimand Fenrys for using the princess’s name so casually - or do worse for the other implications of what he had said - the aforementioned princess popped her head out the door.

“Could one of you big, strong, protective guards come check in my chambers for any threats? I’m scared there may be something dangerous in there.” Her tone was anything but scared.

Fenrys whipped his head to the side to look down the corridor. “Did you hear that?” There hadn’t been a sound.

“Fenrys, do you think there’s something dangerous coming from down there too?”

He sketched a bow. “I can’t be sure, your highness, but I’d better check. For the sake of your safety of course. Rowan can investigate within your chambers while I’m gone.” His mock grave tone broke into a half laugh.

He and Aelin exchanged a complicated series of winks, a language the two of them had developed, as he turned down the hall.

Aelin turned her attention to Rowan as she made her way into her chamber. “Well, my guard, are you coming?”

He followed her through her sitting area and into her bedroom. While he was the height of formality in his pristine uniform, she wore only a small golden nightgown. Ostentatious. And very, very distracting.

Which must have been her goal, because before Rowan even noticed they were moving, she had him backed against her closed bedroom door.

“It’s a bit difficult to search your room for threats from this position, princess.”

“And here I was, under the impression that I had the very best guards looking out for me.” A smirk appeared on her face. “Maybe I should go see if Fenrys can come in here, then, if you’re having too much trouble. Or I could see if Lorcan could-”

He cut her off with a growl.

She laughed. “Well, if you don’t want them to have to do it, looks like you’d better protect me, then.”

“And what am I protecting you from this time? Loneliness like usual?” His face softened as he leaned in to kiss her, dropping the game of pretenses of being her guard that they played each time he met her like this.

“How about from nightmares about all of the horrible suitors I’ve had to meet with recently?”

She meant it as an innocent joke, but Rowan’s blood ran cold. He pulled back from her.

Seeing the look of horror he was failing to keep from his face, she quickly added, “I said no to all of them.” She pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “Obviously.” 

That only made the dread in his stomach coil tighter.

From his first day at the castle, he had been drawn to her like a moth to a flame. Or like a moth to a strong willed, demi-Fae princess with fire powers. He thought he would never be able to get close to ehr. After all, even to a princess who trains with them, palace guards were still too far below her station to befriend.

So of course Aelin knew them each by name and spoke with them constantly. Especially the ones posted outside her room each night. And the more he got to know her this way, the more enamoured with her he became. That was fine. He could choke down his feelings with a mantra of _Boundaries. Lines. Off-limits._ and never let it get in the way of his duty to protect her. So long as she never found out or reciprocated his feelings, things would be fine.

Until one night she had a nightmare so bad that she called for a guard to tell her that no one had gotten into the castle. No one had hurt her family. No one had taken away everything and left her alone in the world. Rowan had been that guard who saw Aelin’s walls come down. And she didn’t try to put them back up for him after that. Which led them to where they were now.

Rowan knew it would never, could never last. Aelin would marry someone of status who was an advantageous match for Terrasen. She would forget about him. If he was lucky, maybe she would acknowledge him if she ever saw him. Knowing the inevitable as coming didn’t make it any easier now that it was here. If Aelin was meeting with potential matches, his days of stealing these brief moments with her were more numbered than he thought.

“I,” he swallowed, trying to rapidly compose the pieces of himself that were falling apart even faster. “I should really be getting back to my post.”

“Fenrys has covered for us for much longer than this.” Taking him by the hands, she pulled him over to her bed.

He let himself be moved by her, too dazed by the impending heartbreak to resist. They got into their usual position: Aelin sitting up against the backboard under the covers, Rowan perched on the edge of the bed atop them, their joined hands in his lap.

Rowan kept his head down, watching as Aelin toyed with his hands. He sighed. “We have to stop doing this, Fireheart.”

“What? Why?” The soft playfulness that had been inhabiting her voice all night turned to icy indignance.

“If anyone had discovered that we’ve been meeting in secret up to this point, I’d have been severely punished and removed from the guard. But the closer you are to getting engaged and, gods, married, if we keep this up, my life may end up on the line.”

She untangled one of her hands from his and used it to tilt his chin up so he looked her in the eye. “I will not let anything happen to you.”

“I don’t know if you have the political bargaining power to guarantee that, princess.” He didn’t sound sad, just resigned to his fate.

“Who needs to bargain politically? We’re two of the best fighters in Terrasen. If anyone comes after you, we’ll fight our way out. Run away someplace together. Rifthold, maybe. I hear people with our skill sets can make good money in Arobynn Hamel’s Assassin Guild.” She scoffed, letting her hand drop. “Can you imagine me going from a princess to an assassin? How ridiculous.”

What worried Rowan wasn’t the thought of his princess as an assassin. That was interesting in many ways. What worried him was how serious she was about running away with him.

“Aelin, don’t. Don’t talk about us being together as if it’s a possibility.”

The defiant look that never truly left her eye grew stronger. “And why shouldn’t it be that simple?”

He knew she knew the answer to that, but she was going to make him say it anyways. He gritted his teeth, trying not to sound harsh. “You know you have to marry someone of your own rank. Someone who lives in a palace, not works in one.”

“Lady Marion was a laundress before she caught Cal Lochan’s eye.” 

“That’s different. She married into the rank of lady. Whoever you marry becomes Prince Consort and should be deserving of that rank.”

Aelin took his face in her hands, gently stroking his cheekbones with her thumbs. “And you don’t think you are? I can’t think of anyone better to rule beside me than my loyal friend and protector who has seen all of the worst parts of me and loves me still.”

“Oh, don’t be cruel.” Rowan sprung back from the bed and was almost to the door when Aelin jumped up and caught him by the wrist.

“I’m sorry, Rowan, please don’t go.”

“Why? So you can keep torturing me with the idea of us marrying even though it can never happen? Because I can do that perfectly well on my own.” He stopped pulling away from her though.

She took that as an invitation to continue. “At least let me tell you how the meeting with my family about my suitors went.”

Rowan couldn’t say no to her. Which was the exact thing that got him into this trouble in the first place. Still, he let Aelin lead him back to where they had been sitting on the bed.

“Well, firstly, before the meeting, Aedion and I talked, and he said that he fully supports us running away to Rifthold as long as we bring him along. Now personally, I think that’s just because he got a crush on that trader’s niece, Lysandra Ennar, when she and her uncle were here last winter and wants to track her down again, but-”

“You told Aedion about us?” Rowan interrupted. So much for that self control.

“I tell Aedion about everything.” Her face dared him to challenge her. “And Aedion likes you. Even if he didn’t, he wouldn’t rat you out because he wouldn’t betray me like that.”

It didn’t change the fact that they could never marry, but it was nice to know that at least one person in Aelin’s family would have approved of him. He liked Aedion, even if Aelin thought both of them were far too overprotective.

“Then I met with my parents and Orlon, and they asked me what I thought of the men I’d met, especially the crown prince of Adarlan.” Aelin striking a match with the prince would be a powerful thing, particularly since the relationship between Terrasen and Adarlan had been rocky at best recently. “I told them that Dorian Havilliard is cute, but there’s this palace guard who’s really hot.”

He snorted. “You did not say that.”

“Well, that’s not _exactly_ how I phrased it,” she purred.

As her words sunk in, Rowan grew so panicked that it was a miracle his words came out even slightly calm. “How did you phrase it, then?”

“Are you calm enough for me to tell you, or are you going to jump up and leave again when I do?” She was teasing him, but also clearly worried he was a flight risk.

He gave her hand a squeeze, which she returned. “I can be calm.”

“I told my parents that because of a lifetime of seeing them in love, I won’t settle for a loveless marriage, no matter how ‘appropriate’ or politically advantageous. Then I told them that I had found someone who I love, who loves me back, and who may be a guardsman, not a prince or a lord, but is a better man than any who are.

“And I told them in no unequivocal terms thatI would marry him, even if I had to stop taking my contraceptives so they would be forced to let us marry to legitify a child.”

Rowan wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. The royal family knew that he was sneaking around with Aelin. And she had spoken out against them for _him_. If they reacted poorly, he was in more danger than he had ever been in before.

“What did they say?” Every nerve was on fire, the same as before a fight.

“None of them said anything for a while. They were all too busy laughing.” She smiled and shook her head at the memory. “At first I thought it was because they saw me as little more than a petulant child, but then I saw the pride on my father’s face. He looked happier than the day I asked to train with Aedion and the others. My mother said I reminded her of herself at my age, so headstrong.”

Positive reactions from her parents were good signs. Rowan didn’t want to get too optimistic yet. Aelin hadn’t told him the most important response: the king’s. “And Orlon?”

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget, or live down, for that matter, what Orlon said: ‘if you do plan to marry below your rank, I think you can outrage history even more by choosing lower than a guardsman.’ And as much as I love outraging history, I think I’m perfectly happy with my guard.”

“So this all means?” His heart wanted to soar like a hawk at what seemed like such good news, but he was waiting for the floor to be pulled out from beneath him. In his experience, what was too good to be true usually wasn’t.

“This all means,” she dropped to one knee on the floor before him, “Rowan Whitethorn, will you marry me?”

He pulled her up and swung her around in a massive hug. “Yes, Aelin Ashryver Galathynius, I will marry you.”

She leaned into his chest. “I was going to make sure you didn’t have to work my engagement dinner if it were to someone else, because it would be painful for both of us to have you there, but now it looks like you’re going to be busy that night anyways.” Her joyous laugh was a beautiful sound.

Her mentioning the possibility of being engaged to another brought him back to the beginning of their conversation - and to a realization. “Wait a moment. You knew this whole time that your family had approved of you marrying me, and yet you didn't say anything when I was terrified our time together had come to an end.”

She shrugged. “You were having quite a time working yourself up over that. Who was I to stop you?”

He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, smiling into her hair. “What am I going to do with you?”

“I seem to recall you telling me you were going to make me regret saying certain things. You could add this to that tally?”

“A very good idea.” A clock in the other room chimed. “For another time. I really should get back to my station now.”

She shot him a look. “We’re going to be married. You don’t have to pretend you’re _just_ my guard anymore.”

“But we aren’t yet, and I am your guard.”

With a sigh - and one last kiss - Aelin reluctantly got back in her bed. As Rowan reached the door, she called out. “Goodnight, my betrothed.”

“Goodnight, my betrothed.”

And it was. It had been a very good night. The best of Rowan’s life so far. And with the knowledge that he would be at Aelin’s side for the rest of his life, he knew each night after would be even better.


End file.
